The present invention relates generally to computer systems, and more specifically, to counter-based wide fetch management in a computer system.
In the field of computing, a cache is a small, fast memory or storage device used to store data or instructions that were accessed recently, are accessed frequently, or are likely to be accessed in the future, by a processor. Reading from or writing to a cache is typically cheaper (in terms of access time and/or resource utilization) than accessing other memory or storage devices in a computer system. Once data is fetched from main memory and stored in the cache, the data can be accessed in the cache instead of re-fetching the data from main memory, saving both time and resources. A cache is made up of units of storage referred to as cache lines having a cache line size, and each cache line has an associated cache tag that references the cache line. Data may be fetched from the main memory in units equal to the cache line size for installation in the cache.